Parallel Messages from Wendell Berry & Meic Pearse
Longing to be Covenantal
I am a very different person than Wheeler Catlett. Well, I will begin with the obvious. I am not a man; I am not a lawyer; I do not live in a small, farming community; I am not bound by my locale nor have I ever experienced an authentic connection to my land. My world is quite a contrast from the Port William community that Wheeler considers home. I am a 21st century young adult with all the promise that a quality education and privileged upbringing seems to provide, and the horizon is seemingly filled with endless possibilities of fruitful life, labor, and love—yet, the allure and subtle resonation of a fictional community called Port William.
We live in an opportunistic culture of consumerism and individualism—a culture where wealth, appearance, and influence are highly prized and praised. We are granted opportunity and comfort. Many of us are given all that we need to succeed and more. There is a deep tide of invincibility that seems to exist—a tide that has led to what Meic Pearse calls cultural imperialism. In a Western culture complete with all that we need to survive and thrive, the actual reality of a messy, broken world can be ignored or suppressed all too easily. The blessings and progress of modernity have come with consequences, and in his book, Why the Rest Hates the West, Meic Pearse gives a powerful account of the formation of a cultural, barbaric “juggernaut” that lacks the ability to truly relate to much of the surrounding world. Pearse’s description of the Western world’s current, cultural climate juxtaposed with the endearing simplicity of Wendell Berry’s Port William community seems to offer a powerful picture of truth when read in relationship to each other.
Berry’s characters have an authentic tie to their land. They understand the power of place and the sense of belongingness, community, and obligation born by this connection to place. They have a deep understanding of their past, their ancestors, and their relationship to others. They seem to know what it means to love their neighbor. In the story “It wasn’t Me,” Wheeler Catlett beautifully sums up the values of such a community:
Everything about a place that’s different from its price is a gift. Everything about a man or a woman that’s different from their price is a gift. The life of a neighborhood is a gift. I know that if you bought a calf from Nathan Coulter you’d pay him for it, and that’s right. But aside from that, you’re friends and neighbors, you work together, and so there’s lots of giving and taking without a price—some that you don’t remember, some that you never knew about. You don’t send a bill. You don’t, if you can help it, keep an account…(288).
Giving without receiving or without remembering—this is a foreign concept to the society in which we now live. Wheeler’s determination in this story to secure the farm for Elton and his wife shows his commitment to not only the living but also the dead. He was willing to risk his own reputation and willing to risk failure in order to fulfill a commitment he made to a dear friend who had died. This is merely one instance where Wheeler exemplifies an understanding of the significance to place and relationships.
The ideas of obligation, duty, and neighborly living are natural, seemingly inherent in the way in which Wendell Berry’s characters live (example from another story…). It is exactly the loss of such values that Meic Pearse articulates to be one main reason in which we cannot relate to other cultures in our world today. Most cultures are still intricately infused with religious morality, ties to people, family, and land. They are committed to a network or community in a way that we, in the West, no longer are. They accept, appreciate, and value the concepts of obligation, duty, and respect. Pearse asserts that in order to begin relating to other countries and cultures again, “we will need to be reconverted to the truths about morality, family, and social relations that we have lately come to reject as oppressive. We will, therefore, need to become much less quick to reject each and every claim of duty as being somehow an infringement of our rights” (168). This, he says, will allow us to “rejoin the human race.”
Together Meic Pearse and Wendell Berry’s accounts are a poignant pair. We read a more directive description from Pearse in which he explicitly explains why we are not successful in our relations with much of the world. Pearse gives a direct call of to Westerners. He gives a call to be thoughtful. He gives a call to understand. Berry attempts to teach us through his stories appealing to our imaginations and the past. He gives us a sense of what we are missing. He gives us a sense of loss. Maybe this is why I can relate to an unlikely character like Wheeler Catlett as Berry strikes a chord of truth by indirectly giving us a picture of authentic community and belongingness.
As members of the Body of Christ, we ought to be dutiful, accepting responsibility and obligation as vehicles to give. We ought to seek genuine community and become increasingly more familiar with what it looks like to love our neighbors. We ought to seek cultural reconciliation and learn to love those who are different than us. We ought to serve and love those who did come before us—those from whence we came. Both Berry and Pearse remind us of virtues that are easily lost in the cultural waves we have experienced since the advent of modernity. All these “oughts” point to truth. I am not so different than the simple, small town lawyer character, Wheeler Catlett. I long to be covenantal.
We live in an opportunistic culture of consumerism and individualism—a culture where wealth, appearance, and influence are highly prized and praised. We are granted opportunity and comfort. Many of us are given all that we need to succeed and more. There is a deep tide of invincibility that seems to exist—a tide that has led to what Meic Pearse calls cultural imperialism. In a Western culture complete with all that we need to survive and thrive, the actual reality of a messy, broken world can be ignored or suppressed all too easily. The blessings and progress of modernity have come with consequences, and in his book, Why the Rest Hates the West, Meic Pearse gives a powerful account of the formation of a cultural, barbaric “juggernaut” that lacks the ability to truly relate to much of the surrounding world. Pearse’s description of the Western world’s current, cultural climate juxtaposed with the endearing simplicity of Wendell Berry’s Port William community seems to offer a powerful picture of truth when read in relationship to each other.
Berry’s characters have an authentic tie to their land. They understand the power of place and the sense of belongingness, community, and obligation born by this connection to place. They have a deep understanding of their past, their ancestors, and their relationship to others. They seem to know what it means to love their neighbor. In the story “It wasn’t Me,” Wheeler Catlett beautifully sums up the values of such a community:
Everything about a place that’s different from its price is a gift. Everything about a man or a woman that’s different from their price is a gift. The life of a neighborhood is a gift. I know that if you bought a calf from Nathan Coulter you’d pay him for it, and that’s right. But aside from that, you’re friends and neighbors, you work together, and so there’s lots of giving and taking without a price—some that you don’t remember, some that you never knew about. You don’t send a bill. You don’t, if you can help it, keep an account…(288).
Giving without receiving or without remembering—this is a foreign concept to the society in which we now live. Wheeler’s determination in this story to secure the farm for Elton and his wife shows his commitment to not only the living but also the dead. He was willing to risk his own reputation and willing to risk failure in order to fulfill a commitment he made to a dear friend who had died. This is merely one instance where Wheeler exemplifies an understanding of the significance to place and relationships.
The ideas of obligation, duty, and neighborly living are natural, seemingly inherent in the way in which Wendell Berry’s characters live (example from another story…). It is exactly the loss of such values that Meic Pearse articulates to be one main reason in which we cannot relate to other cultures in our world today. Most cultures are still intricately infused with religious morality, ties to people, family, and land. They are committed to a network or community in a way that we, in the West, no longer are. They accept, appreciate, and value the concepts of obligation, duty, and respect. Pearse asserts that in order to begin relating to other countries and cultures again, “we will need to be reconverted to the truths about morality, family, and social relations that we have lately come to reject as oppressive. We will, therefore, need to become much less quick to reject each and every claim of duty as being somehow an infringement of our rights” (168). This, he says, will allow us to “rejoin the human race.”
Together Meic Pearse and Wendell Berry’s accounts are a poignant pair. We read a more directive description from Pearse in which he explicitly explains why we are not successful in our relations with much of the world. Pearse gives a direct call of to Westerners. He gives a call to be thoughtful. He gives a call to understand. Berry attempts to teach us through his stories appealing to our imaginations and the past. He gives us a sense of what we are missing. He gives us a sense of loss. Maybe this is why I can relate to an unlikely character like Wheeler Catlett as Berry strikes a chord of truth by indirectly giving us a picture of authentic community and belongingness.
As members of the Body of Christ, we ought to be dutiful, accepting responsibility and obligation as vehicles to give. We ought to seek genuine community and become increasingly more familiar with what it looks like to love our neighbors. We ought to seek cultural reconciliation and learn to love those who are different than us. We ought to serve and love those who did come before us—those from whence we came. Both Berry and Pearse remind us of virtues that are easily lost in the cultural waves we have experienced since the advent of modernity. All these “oughts” point to truth. I am not so different than the simple, small town lawyer character, Wheeler Catlett. I long to be covenantal.
I am inspired to recapture these truths.
See Wendell Berry's That Distant Land and Meic Pearse's Why the Rest Hates the West
No comments:
Post a Comment